How to extract aluminum powder from aluminum ore
The aluminum smelting process can be used for alumina production and electrolytic aluminum production.
The production process of alumina includes Bayer process and sintering process.
Due to the complexity of the process (for general enterprises and individuals), the investment cost is too high. To build a normal-scale aluminum ore smelting plant requires an investment of at least several hundred million yuan to generate scale benefits, so it is best to sell to large smelting companies such as Chinalco .
In addition, if the grade of aluminum ore is not high, if it does not meet the grade requirements of smelting, further processing is required, which is a considerable investment.
Route 1: Aluminum ore-bauxite (aluminum oxide)-electrolysis with cryolite to obtain aluminum-aluminum foil-ball mill into aluminum powder.
Route 2: Aluminum ore-bauxite (aluminum oxide)-electrolysis with cryolite to obtain aluminum-hot melt atomization-sieving aluminum powder of different particle sizes.
Due to the different characteristics of the three types of bauxite, each alumina production enterprise adopts different production processes in production, mainly including Bayer method, soda lime sintering method and Bayer-sintering combined method. Generally, high-grade bauxite is produced by the Bayer method, and medium and low-grade bauxite is produced by the combined method or the sintering method. Due to its simple process and low energy consumption, the Bayer process has become a widely used method in the current alumina production, and its output accounts for about 95% of the total global alumina production. Alumina is electrolyzed to produce aluminum metal under the action of a strong current. This process is called electrolytic aluminum.